President-elect Donald Trump may throw TikTok a lifeline – after the popular video-sharing app reportedly vowed to go dark when the national ban goes into effect Sunday.
Trump, whose inauguration will be held Monday, is considering issuing an executive order that would prevent enforcement of the law for 60 to 90 days, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
The newspaper did not say how Trump could legally do so.
The Trump transition team did not have an immediate comment.
The law signed in April mandates a ban on new TikTok downloads on Apple or Google app stores if Chinese parent ByteDance fails to divest the site.
The news of a possible stay for TikTok came hours after the Supreme Court did not issue an opinion on the federal law.
Meanwhile, TikTok is reportedly planning to pull the plug on the app if the ban goes into effect as expected.
The roughly 170 million US users who try to access the app will be greeted with a pop-up message directing them to a website, then given the option to download their data from the app, according to the Information.
The company’s plan goes beyond the scope of the law, which still allows users who already have the app on their phones to keep using it.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Members of Congress and the Justice Department allege that TikTok, which is owned by Beijing-based ByteDance, poses an unacceptable national security threat — capable of secretly manipulating content via its recommendation algorithm and mass data collection such as location-tracking, among other risks.
TikTok has denied the allegations.
Trump — once a staunch critic of TikTok — has lately signaled that he is opposed to the ban. His legal team has asked the Supreme Court to halt the ban from taking effect so that he can pursue a political solution.
During oral arguments on TikTok’s appeal last week, all nine justices indicated that the national security concerns outweighed potential risks to free speech.
On Wednesday, the high court issued opinions on other cases but punted on TikTok.
There are no other dates yet scheduled for the court to release opinions.
Trump met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida last month.
The divestment bill passed Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support It gives ByteDance 120 days to sell the app.
TikTok has argued that new law is a de facto ban that violates the First Amendment. The company also claims it couldn’t have sold the app within the bill’s 120-day timeline.
Earlier this week, Bloomberg reported that Chinese officials were considering the possibility of selling the TikTok brand to Elon Musk — who already owns the social media platform X and who leads Tesla, which has extensive operations in China.
TikTok representatives dismissed that report as “pure fiction.”
Other potential TikTok suitors included Trump’s former Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and billionaire Frank McCourt, who has partnered with “Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary in an effort to buy the brand and rebuild its algorithm from scratch on US soil.
With Post wires
